Shop-Built Axle Housing Saved Front Wheel Drive

Shop-Built Axle Housing Saved Front Wheel Drive TRACTORS Tires/Wheels 27-6-36 Ian McConaghy's White 2-105 front wheel assist tractor needed repair but the necessary part could not be located. So the Legal, Alberta man took things into his own hands, literally. "When the axle housing broke we phoned almost every salvage yard in Canada and couldn't even find a used one," McConaghy says. "Our options were to either take the front wheel assist out of it and put in a straight wheel axle, or fix what we had." He started by taking the axle housing apart so he could see what needed doing. "A ball U-joint was machined into the axle housing and that was what was broken. Also, there's a floating axle that goes inside all of this, and that was broken, too. The axle fits into the housing, so when the housing broke, it broke the axle as well," McConaghy explains. "I had to cut the old ball U-joint out and then machine a new hole into the ball. Then I machined a new insert for inside the two pieces, stuck them together, and re-welded it. I put the floating axle in the lathe to get it perfectly straight, and then I welded that, too." McConaghy estimates that if the necessary parts had been available, they would have cost him around $1,800, but he was able to make his own for only about $200 in materials and 20 hours of labor. Within a month of fixing his own tractor, McConaghy got a call from someone else in a similar predicament, only with an "International 186 Hydro" unit. "They have similar axles to my White but this time I was able to get the engineering blueprint through the manufacturer, which helped make the repair," he says. McConaghy has no training as a machinist, but is a heavy-equipment mechanic and a licensed welder. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ian McConaghy, R.R. 1, Legal, Alberta, Canada T0G 1L0 (ph 780 349-2609; fax 780 349-4139; email: blackdiamond99@ hotmail.com).

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